Odor left stunned after error leads to Jays' ALDS win

Rougned Odor, public enemy No. 1 in these parts, was the last member of the Texas Rangers to head to his stall in a morgue-like locker room late Sunday evening.

By the time his teammates had showered, dressed and done interviews, Odor was still wearing his full uniform. He was stunned, and how could he not be.

His bottom of the 10th throw to complete a potential double play had sailed wide, eventually resulting in Josh Donaldson scampering home for the winning run.

One year ago, the mood in that same visitor’s room had been one of extreme shock. The team had blown a 2-0 ALDS lead over the Blue Jays.

This time around, after being swept away by a team that finished six games back in the wins column, the only American League squad with 95 victories this season was still stunned at finding another inexplicable way to fall to the arch rival Blue Jays.

“It’s not always the best team that wins, we just got cold at the wrong time,” said catcher Jonathan Lucroy. “Today we had a chance to win, we were up by one and we had a chance to go and we just let some balls get away from us.”

Perhaps even more than last year, this loss is going to sit with the Rangers. Outfielder Shin-Soo Choo angrily punted an errant bag out of his way, but mostly, the players just rued letting a great season slip away too early.

“We couldn’t hit and I take the blame for that, I didn’t contribute offensively at all,” future Hall-of-Fame third baseman and team leader Adrian Beltre said.

“If you don’t score, you can’t win. Offensively we didn’t really click. The only guy hitting was Elvis (Andrus). We had a great regular season but that doesn’t really say anything right now. We don’t play the season just to advance to the postseason, we all want to win it. There’s no doubt we are all disappointed. Our hopes were a lot higher than where we finished. It’s going to be a tough one to swallow, especially the way we lost.”

Odor played down the hostility angle, saying it wasn’t an even more bitter pill to swallow since Jose Bautista and the Jays stuck the nail in his team’s coffin.

“For me I don’t care if it’s Blue Jays, or I face another team. I don’t care who it is, we just try to play how we play and win the game, but we didn’t,” Odor said after explaining the errant throw in some detail.

“I just tried to make the play and I pulled the ball a little bit. It’s part of the game.”

Odor said Edwin Encarnacion’s slide into second, which was briefly challenged, was completely fine.

“I just pulled the ball a little bit. There’s nothing I can do now.”

The Rangers spoke of how the wild card system can play havoc with really good teams, throwing off their timing and momentum, while rewarding squads that sneak into the post-season.

“I’m never one for excuses, but it just seems like that wild card game man, just sitting around for a few days while other teams are gaining momentum, I don’t know how to explain it,” Ian Desmond said.

“It’s like your first at bat you hit a first-inning home run, your next at-bat you feel great no matter what. They’re coming off a great game (capped by Encarnacion’s walkoff homer to advance to the ALDS) and it’s win-win for them and it sucks. It’s tough, but we fought our a—- off all year. It just ended too early.”

The Rangers had been comeback kids all season, rallying more than any other team in baseball for victories. But they couldn’t dig deep against the surging Jays.

“Everybody knows what kind of an environment this is here in Toronto,” said hard-luck losing pitcher Matt Bush.

“That was the kind of game that we’ve won all year and it was really tough to lose.”

Andrus concurred.

“They got hot at the right moment. They were really tough for us to contain,” he said.

“What we’ve done all year. We know that we’re never out of it,” said Mitch Moreland.

“If we were to play tomorrow it would be the same way. Unfortunately that’s not the case.”

Nope, Texas is out of comebacks and still out of answers when it comes to beating the Blue Jays.